Daren Vashdune
General Description Link to Character Sheet Daren Vashdune Character's Role Daren fights with a fast and efficient combat style, using swift actions to cast his spells, which mostly support combat, while being able to lay down some battlefield control when the primary spellcaster is unable to. Backstory Daren grew up in a relatively small Red Kingdom town, where he lived a relatively uneventful life. He was the son of a baker, who he often helped out by fetching flower or drawing water out of the well, and he often kept store of the inventory and the sales of the day after he grew old enough to read and write. He was a prodigy, able to take the stocks when he was just 5, but his father thought this was normal and never mentioned it, and no one cares much about people able to take inventory at all, regardless of how old they are. Regardless, he remained an unknown person in his town, until the Goblin Wars restarted. The Goblin Wars were nothing new. The Goblins in the Red Kingdom were known to rise up in revolt every now and again against the red king before being helplessly slaughtered before his armies, until the warrens would overflow again and the cycle would restart. The uprising started just a few miles away from Daren's home, and he was drafted into the militia like all of the other capable young men in the town. There, he was trained in the use of martial weapons, and though he picked up on the use of them relatively soon, no one thought it was too odd. However, when the Goblin Wars truly started in the town, people did notice. Being competent at tactics, Daren was placed in charge of a group of several new recruits on the night patrol who would take watch from the walls. Unfortunately for him and his troops, the goblins had night vision, and knew humans didn't. They attacked during his watch. When the fighting started, Daren sent up a call to arms for the milita, while he and his troops held off the goblins at the walls while the rest of the militia rose and organized themselves. During the fight, Daren seized command of the battlefield, directing troops and holding the walls. Despite not normally having a forceful personality, he led the troops well through the night, holding off the Goblin horde though extremely outnumbered. When a nearby Red Army patrol arrived the next day, they were astounded to see that the goblins had already been routed over the course of the night. When they investigated, Daren's keen intellect was discovered, and he was immediately deported to the Wizard's academy in the Red Kingdom. When he got there, he was accepted into a class of people who were as smart as him, but shared none of his interests. He was raised in a small town playing cards and some penny-ante gambling games, whereas the others were raised by aristocrats, showered with tutors and surrounded by intelligent conversation. He was excluded from the group, and often felt awkward around the wizards. However, when he was actually placed in command of other troops, he fit in relatively well in the corps. No one there was too particularly social, but they liked Daren because he didn't have the imperial aloofness of the other wizards, and because he saved their lives on more than one occasion. Daren, for one, didn't feel as much like a reject when he was with them, and found himself often trying to fit in with them, practicing weapon drills from his time with the militia, learning some basic combat spells to make him more of a match with the other fighters, and so on. He wasn't that good at fighting, but he could hold his own, and the troops under him respected him for that. As he rose in the ranks of the mages, he learned more and more spells, but with only a few slots open in his spellbook, he was split between learning more spells to help his soldiers, or more spells to make him competent at melee. Eventually, his searches led him to the Haste spell, after many trawling searches. And then his mind blew up. Here was a spell that made him and all of his soldiers good at fighting, and not just one or the other. He would use this spell at every opportunity, at every chance, practicing with it and actually becoming competent at fighting, at the neglect of his other spells. The headmasters at the college disapproved of this, and repeatedly asked him to stop, as it was interfering with his studies, making his life more and more hellish every day by holding him back, giving him remedial courses, and humiliating him. He stayed only for one reason: He actually won the respect of the soldiers under his command. And then, as the last straw, he was transferred to a new unit. Daren no longer had any reason to stay in the Red Army. He lost his troops, he was fighting in lands other than his homelands, he wasn't able to practice his combat skills, and he was mocked and humiliated by his peers and superiors! He had enough. He left as a deserter, presumably pursued by the Red Kingdom. He didn't find out. He fled to the icy reaches of the Silver Kingdom, where he met a group of Ruin Delvers, who he adventured with for a time. They didn't mind that he was a fugitive, and glad of his mix of arcane and melee talents, and he was comfortable with people he could fight with on equal ground and rely on. They would clear out caves with giant creatures in them for the public defense, and revel in the treasures. It was good work, for a time, before they started in the Onyx caves. The Caves were new territory, and there were rumors that there was a smuggling operation going on there, done by people who could somehow communicate with the beasts. As it turned out, the contraband were the animation crystals. The ruins were stuffed with them, but their power was held off by some internal magic of the cave, preventing them from activating. That is, until Daren and his companions smashed the crystal in the middle of the cave, after they had cleared out the cave of the smugglers and the monsters. Daren, through his speed, managed to dodge through the hordes of Zombies, though his companions were not so lucky. He went and researched the crystals that caused the massive reanimation, and found out that they normally conjured harmless zombies. He immediately jumped on a ship to investigate, sailing down to the Blue Kingdom to get more information before delving into the Black Kingdom, and on the docks heard about a reclusive priest who knew a thing or two about necromancy. Finding no harm in checking it out, he investigated, to find out what the priest knew. Little did he know what was in store... Comments Category:Character